Maybe then they should buy a cheaper car or save more for the down payment? It shouldn’t take you longer to pay off your car than it does to graduate from college. 

That’s a nice strawman. The emergency order doesn’t apply to people who are commuting to or from a business that is lawfully operating during the state of emergency or a task related directly to their employment. And nobody is being thrown in jail simply for playing basketball or gathering with a few friends in the…

Much of San Francisco is this way too. It’s nothing like what the article makes it out to be. If you’re going to be closed for a while, best to fortify things as much as possible, especially if you still have merchandise there and aren’t going to keep it manned.

The fine should only be a last resort, only when someone ignores police orders, is a repeat offender, or is deliberately doing something egregious to violate the order like throwing a party.

Yeah, honestly, fuck them. They’re almost at the verge of committing manslaughter. They’re lucky they are only getting a fine. If it wouldn’t make the problem worse, I would say throw them in jail. Fines are really the only way you can stop repeat offenders or people who refuse to obey police enforcement of the…

The problem is, that doesn’t work from a public health perspective. Someone goes out, hangs out unnecessarily with other people, comes home and coughs in the common-area of an apartment, and now their grandmother and everyone who passed through the common areas of the grocery store, the bodega, and their apartment…

I think for people under emergency shelter-in-place orders, the expectation is that only essential repairs get done, those that would otherwise violate the warranty of habitability (no heating, no hot water, sewage leak, et cetera) or present an immediate hazard to the tenant (structural unsoundness, et cetera).…

I mean, to be quite frank, the landlord is responsible for paying the mortgage, not the tenant. You’re running a business and businesses need to have contingency plans. What happens if you’re unable to get income from the property for an extended period due to circumstances beyond your control like natural disaster, a…

There’s a few different moral imperatives. I think for this situation you want to use what is called the veil of ignorance. Pretend like you don’t know what your place is in society: you don’t know if you’re healthy or ill, young or old, poor or rich, work as a Wall Street trader or a deliveryman. Now, what is the beha…

The problem with just looking at the death rate though is that it hides the serious injuries and hospitalizations that occur. Like, if you look at the death rate for measles in children in the United States, it is very low, but it hospitalizes a lot of children and causes lasting or lifelong injuries for some.

Federal student loans are generally pretty forgiving. My experience, at least with Nelnet, was that you can easily request a forbearance online and that they’ll even remove missed payments from your credit report after you start making regular payments. This is all automatic, without even having to speak with a…

I agree. I’m working from home and making my normal paycheck (for now). I’m not going to say “no” to $1000, but I would prefer the money go to small businesses and the unemployed and underemployed as well as those essential workers like healthcare workers and deployed National Guardsmen that should be getting at least…

Does it affect contributions to an IRA/HSA for the 2019 tax year?

I’m pretty sure that it’s likely to be a straight-up check that will be taken out of the federal budget/revenue, not something that will impact your federal income tax. Basically, it’s coming out of the national deficit and we’ll worry about how to pay for it later. 

Last I heard, they were still trying to go ahead, but it was put on hold by a federal judge and who knows when the courts will convene to hear non-essential cases?

I just opened up a Roth IRA to roll over 401k funds from an old employer and contribute as much as I can before April 15, and I’m down several thousand dollars already. I’m still buying though. Some people recommend keeping as much money as you’ll need in bonds so that you won’t have to sell stocks at a loss when the…

But if you do it wrong, you end up owning more money than some people can afford or even end up getting a tax penalty for not witholding enough. And not everyone has a job with a predictable salary. Some people rely on unpredictable bonuses, commissions, royalties, or other sources of income.

You know that you can put that IRA money in cash or bonds if you want, right?

Yeah, but don’t buy using money you’ll need in the next few years. If it’s a minor crisis, this could be near the bottom. If it’s a major crisis that pushes the world into recession, this could just be the beginning of the fall.